The Key Point Blog

Industry OEMs are using innovative technology and services to help fight the spread of the coronavirus. The fast availability and development of relevant innovations from companies like Canon, HP, Konica Minolta, and Ricoh shows R&D efforts attuned to global needs.

In light of the postponement of FESPA 2020, Mimaki Europeresponded quickly by announcing its planned product launches via a webinar. Ronald van den Broek (General Sales Manager, EMEA) provided an overview of the product announcements, Bert Benckhuysen (Senior Product Manager, EMEA) went into more detail on the products, and Danna Drion (Senior Marketing Manager) outlined Mimaki’s upcoming series of virtual meetings and customer/press communications as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company’s strategic objectives for this year include continued investments in innovation, efficiency, and competitiveness for all business units. The actual FESPA event, which is now scheduled for October 2020, is expected to bring further announcements. The primary sign & graphics and textile printing announcements from the webinar are outlined below.

The virus known as COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc in the United States and drag the economy to a screeching halt. I talked with several of the major OEMs in the office hardware space about the impact the coronavirus has had on their manufacturing to this point.

On April 1, 2020, Canon announced the latest update to its varioPRINT series of digital printers. Designed with commercial printers in mind, the varioPRINT iX-Series offers a wide variety of capabilities to improve automation, productivity, and media handling. Following on the success of the original varioPRINT platform that was introduced in 2015, this announcement demonstrates Canon’s continued efforts to combine digital capabilities with the quality and productivity of offset.

Your Home Printer and Network Equipment Could Be Putting Corporate Data at Risk

Recent legislation measures introduced by governments across the globe have forced businesses to take much more seriously the safeguarding of our personal data, with the threat of serious punitive fines for those who breach the rules.

Konica Minolta’s flagship augmented reality (AR) software platform, genARate, launched back in November 2018, but the company has been supporting, developing, and expanding its usage ever since. For those who may not be familiar, genARate is best described as a content creation tool for the AR space. Like many solutions, it has a mobile component – which currently includes an app that users can download (as well as a web solution…more on that later), and it also has a backend content creation studio that helps clients create intriguing and engaging AR experiences.